His First Violin

1895

Caesar Thomson Made a Boat of It and Set It Sailing.

When M. Thomson was asked the impression made upon him by his first violin, he replied: "I was so young at the time that I cannot remember. I do remember, though, what I did with it. I made a beautiful boat and set it sailing in a pond. As a result, I was soundly whipped. I was always more enthusiastic over music than over the violin. The orchestra is the greatest violin. To me my instrument is a means of expression and the best I have. I never studied much and received no more lessons after I was 11½ years old.

"Dupuy, my first master, died then, and I received a few lessons from Leonard, who went away from the town in which I lived after the war of 1871. At the age of 15 I went to Italy to play in the orchestra of Prince von der Veis, under the direction of Herr Muller-Berghaus, to whom, through association, I owe much musically. I remained there ten years, and the Italians interested me greatly. It was not music that I studied in Italy, but the plastic arts. It is the art atmosphere there which makes upon one such a profound impression. In the presence of the works of such a man as Da Vinci, architect, sculptor, painter, what are we all? "Having free access to the royal libraries, I studied the old Italian writers for the violin. We walk in a path made by those who have gone before. From justice we must study them. Among other manuscripts that I examined were 40 compositions, hitherto unknown, by Valentini, written for the violin in 1690. I had them copied and in due time will publish them. As far as my technique is concerned, it is not the result of arduous practice, but of concentrated thought. As a small child I studied three hours a day. Now, with four or five minutes I can accomplish with concentration the work of three or four hours.

"Then why practice so much? I study in a scientific manner and do not believe in so much practice. I study the relation of things by mathematics. Through trigonometry, through the study of angles, I accomplish my work. My unfailing technique has been mentioned. That is due to the simple means through Which I obtain it. I hesitate to make my method public, nor do I know when I shall do it. Joachim desired me to, but it will awaken too strong opposition. It is too directly opposed to existing traditions." — New York Commercial Advertiser.

Rubinstein and Grain

1895

How the Two Great Musicians Were Brought Together In London.

"My impression of Joachim as having the worst hat in London had its pendant," writes a correspondent, "in my recollection of Rubinstein as having the thickest boots. No musician was ever less of an exquisite. He had no affectations. He wore black broadcloth with a nap on it of the kind that parsons used 60 years ago and a soft felt hat, and, notwithstanding this prosaic setting, looked like a Japanese Beethoven — like a Beethoven that had fallen off the side of a teacup.

"He had not, I fancy, much humor, but he had great good nature, and once I saw it tested. It was during his second visit here, when all London was mad over him, and there was something like a Paderewski fever prevalent, and they were fortunate who could hear him play in private. At this party all musical London was assembled, and he was one of the first guests asked to play. Every one knows how excited he used to get over the piano and how fond he was when his work was over of the solace of a cigar. So this night he withdrew from the instrument with his host, and the grateful fragrance of a weed asserted itself from the little anteroom, whose door was discreetly closed.

In due time the hostess had to call on another guest, and there was some interest to see who could succeed Rubinstein.

"She asked Mr. Corney Grain. She was almost a bride, new to the ways of London life, but it was often afterward pointed out as evidence of her savoir faire that she should have called on the one musician in the room whose absolute opposition of style made rivalry impossible. I remember Corney Grain sang something about

"Meet me when the lark's asleep,
Ere Flora fills her dewy cup,
When festive beetles homeward creep
Before the early morn is up.

"He was sitting with his back to the door, a back even then of commanding proportions, and gradually the fragrance of that cigar became more and more in evidence. The door opened first a little, then a little more, then completely, and at last Rubinstein glided out, with Felix Moscheles by his side, and stood near the piano delighted with what he listened to. The artists were introduced. I remember the evening as well as if it were last night. It was the more memorable because that night he did not break a string." — Pall Mall Budget.

At Last! Substitute for Booze Is Found

1920

Good Music Takes Place of Whisky, Says Pianist.

It's here! That long sought substitute for John Barleycorn has been found — and just in the nick of time. Hereafter, when the gentleman with the lustrous nose gets that longing that used to lead to the family entrance, all he'll have to do is to start the phonograph.

For music not only soothes the savage beast, but takes the place of fine whisky, declares Moses Bogulawski, the great Russian pianist in Chicago. He urges it as the social and industrial fire extinguisher of the future.

"The economic cancer with which the world is confronted now can be easily treated with music as the healing spirit," he declares. "The laboring classes have lost their curse — liquor — but good music can take its place. Beautiful tunes will put in harmony the world chaos and will soon become more popular with the laboring man than liquor was in days of yore. Good music should thus be compulsory in our homes and schools."

Professor Bogulawski also stated that social and moral conditions could be improved by the greater diffusion of a good quality of music.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Jan. 3, 1920, p. 7.

Balky Horse Starts a Blaze

1920

Kicks Off Hot Shoe, Sets Blacksmith Shop on Fire

SANDFORDS MILLS, N. Y., Feb. 26. — Upon his arrival in town, Abner Gesner, who lives near here, led his horse into W. A. Wirts' blacksmith shop to be shod. Mr. Wirts prepared the horse's feet without trouble. When he raised the left hind foot of the horse it resented having the red hot shoe applied to its hoof and began jumping and kicking. The horse kicked the hot shoe into a pile of shavings at the end of the shop, igniting them. Wirts had to call out the village fire companies to extinguish the flames.


Blind Coroner Enters Vaudeville

ATLANTA, Ga., Feb. 26. — Paul Donchoo, Atlanta's widely-known blind coroner, has gone into vaudeville. Besides being a coroner and a lawyer, Donchoo is an accomplished musician.


Take 585 Gallstones From Man

HAZLETON, Pa., Feb. 26 — Five hundred and eight-five gallstones were removed in an operation from John Koda, at this place. The man felt much relieved after the operation.


At 91 He is a Movie Fan

CALDwELL., N. J., Feb. 26. — Augustus Bogert at his home in Hanford place, Caldwell, passed the 91st anniversary of his birth. Mr. Bogert was born in New York. He is a movie fan.

A Better Record-Book

1904

The shrewd comment of a Lancashire blacksmith, whose wits had not been dulled by over-education, is quoted by the Cornhill Magazine. It may be suggestive to students in our universities who spend the lecture hours in scribbling notes instead of listening and understanding.

The clerk in charge of a farriery class held by the county council at Preston, England, gave a stalwart blacksmith a notebook and pencil.

"Wot's this 'ere book for?" asked toe man.

"To take notes," replied the clerk.

"'Notes?' Wot sort o' notes?"

"Why, anything that the lecturer says that you think important and want to remember you make a note of in the book."

The Lancashireman looked scornful. "Oh!" said he. "Anything I want to remember I must make a note of in this 'ere book, must I? Then wot do you think my blooming yed's for?"


For A Dog's Ear

Rossini lived before the day of special pleas for the dog, but he was sufficiently in advance of his time to recognize the equality if not the superiority of his own favorite beast.

The Gentleman's Magazine says that the late Sir Arthur Sullivan made Rossini's acquaintance in Paris.

One morning when Sullivan called to see him he found the composer trying over a piece of music.

"What is that?" asked Sullivan.

"It's my dog's birthday," Rossini replied, gravely, "and I write a little piece for him every year."

Wagner As a Humorist

1903

How the Master Responded to a London Critic's Suggestion

Richard Wagner was not a man to whom one would naturally ascribe the faculty of ready joking. It is not from the creator of the serious, somber "Flying Dutchman" or the composer of the half mystical, half religious, opera "Parsifal" that one would expect cheerful pranks at the expense of other people. Nevertheless an instance is on record of how the great tone painter of Baireuth played a very funny trick on a newspaper and probably a good many of the readers accustomed to relying on what it said. It was in the fifties. Wagner, then still climbing the ladder of fame, was conducting the Philharmonic concerts in the British metropolis for a season.

Being, as he remained to the end, a very ardent admirer of Beethoven and, in fact, knowing that master's nine symphonies by heart, he selected several of them for performance in the said series of concerts. The first time, then, that Wagner conducted a Beethoven symphony in London the public received the rendition kindly enough, but the next morning a certain newspaper with a very large circulation came out with a rather severe criticism. The author of "Lohengrin" was in cold print but in unreserved terms scolded for directing a symphony by the immortal Beethoven without the score in front of him. Such a proceeding, to which London was unaccustomed, was sheer presumption, so ran the criticism, and, after further uncomplimentary remarks, the great and influential journal advised young Heir Wagner to use a score when he conducted a Beethoven symphony again.

Well, soon Herr Wagner did, this time with a book of music before him on the desk. He was seen to turn over the leaves with a certain amount of regularity too. His reward came the next day in the form of a commendatory article in the aforesaid newspaper which praised him for a very much better interpretation of Beethoven than his last, due, of course, to the suggested use of the score, whereupon Wagner announced the fact that the score in front of him the previous evening was that of Rossini's opera, "The Barber of Seville," turned upside down. — Collier's Weekly.

Physician Declares Colors Have Influence on Nerves

1920

A New York physician who gives more credit to nature than he takes for himself in the cures he has wrought is a great believer in the effect of colors on the human race. Nature is the best teacher in these things, he says. You will find in your surroundings in the country no black and very little red. Blue and yellow are combined in the restful, reviving green. There is no doubt, the doctor contends, that the wearing of black has an evil effect on both health and spirits. It is the color of Saturn, the planet of gloom, misfortune, fatality and other evil things. If one wishes to be happy and brilliant, blue is the color to wear. The doctor says that the spirit of evil hates blue intensely and flies at the sight of it. Blue also calms the nerves and therefore it is a good color for room decorations.


Great Musicians of India Care Not for Worldly Things

To the Hindu, music, like sculpture and painting, is a sacred art. Music originated from Siva, one of the Hindu Trinity, and Saraswati is the goddess of music and of learning in general. As people look upon music as something sacred, so it has become a highly specialized art. Amateur musicians are not much encouraged. The public seem to say, "Do it well or don't do it at all; don't play false with music; it is too sacred for light treatment." The great musicians of India are generally ascetics. They care not for name, fame, or wealth. They live a life of comparative poverty. The Hindu is of the opinion that a voluptuous or a luxury loving person cannot be a great musician.

Musicians of the Street — Picturesque New York Figures

1887

MUSICIANS OF THE STREET.

The Picturesque Figures Who Make Melody on the Sidewalk.

[Special Correspondence.]

NEW YORK, Nov. 15. — Street musicians in New York are not limited to the hand organ. Every portable instrument under the sun stops at times and tunes up under your windows. Yesterday two men, one with a bagpipe, the other with a pibroch, went through my street making music weird, wild and pathetically sweet. Here and there a nickel was thrown to them from the upper stories, and here and there fell a tear. The concert was musical. They had not the hackneyed, manners of hardened street musicians. Solicitation was new to them. But they woke the echoes with old Scottish airs that moved hearts and moistened eyes.

If one might judge of them and their history, one might say that they were Scotchmen, stranded in New York without money and took this simple plan of earning a little. Sometimes a man stops on a corner after nightfall and sings a song, not in the cracked and dreadful voice of the blind professional street singer, but in sweet and melodious notes. One by one the passing people halt to hear him, and a few remember to pay for the pleasure he has given. He is perhaps of higher station, and temporarily in distress, Possibly he does it for a lark, for the pleasure of giving pleasure to those whose pleasures are few.

Sometimes a very old man, dignified and patriarchal, plays upon a large clarionet, making such music as the souls of musicians love. It is evident that in this humble guise a master breathes upon the instrument. That he has descended from some height of talent, and perhaps fame, is evident. His garments, too, have come down. When he trembles during the pauses in his music his hearers feel their throats thicken and somehow their hands find their way to their pockets. The throng about him increases all the time. His selections are not the much harped upon airs from the popular operas; they are the classic airs of the past. And when he was applauded the pale, old face flushed up with pleasure, and he acknowledged the compliment with the grace of an artist.

Histories, forsooth, have the street musicians. They have lived romances and supped on tragedies. Poverty walks on one side of them and art on the other. The way has been long and up hill all the way, with here and there a light, a halt and a bit of joy. They suggest blind Homer. They do more. They keep our hearts tender. — G. G.

Local Man, A. H. Milner, Sings in Many Operas in Germany

Wisconsin, 1921

SINGS IN MANY OPERAS

Dr. A. H. Milner, Now Visiting in This City

BUSY YEAR IN BERLIN

Finds Student Life in Germany Means Plenty of Work and Constant Self-Denial

If anyone thinks the life of musician is one long dream of pleasure, he would better try studying music in Germany.

This is the opinion, expressed with great emphasis, by Dr. Augustus H. Milner, who has just returned from a year's work in Berlin, under the instruction of Madam Schoen-Rene.

The life of a student who has real ambitions and looks forward to a career of serious work in art, means constant labor, incessant self-denial, moderate living in all ways, according to Dr. Milner.

"If you want to do society singing, that is another matter," says Dr. Milner, with a German shrug. "But if you want to be a real musician—" And then he recounted some of the many qualities that are necessary for a musician, besides the ownership of a voice. You must be first of all really musical in character and have that something that we call temperament. You must have the capacity for work and more work. You must be able to keep at it even when you feel that it isn't any use. You must be able to give up all dissipations and most pleasures, to eat and sleep in such manner and degree as will keep your physical condition at its best. In a word you must be able always to put your music first and everything else second.

Dr. Milner has been having excellent success in this his first year's work abroad. He thinks himself the luckiest of men to have become a pupil of Schoen-Rene, who he says is considered the greatest vocal teacher in the world. Madam Schoen-Rene was a pupil of Manual Garcia, the greatest vocal teacher who ever lived, who had pupils when he was 98 years old and who lived to be 102. Schoen-Rene was at first an interpreter of music and seemed destined to a great career, when she became ill. She came to Minneapolis to visit a sister and, incidentally, to die. Being disappointed in this, she took pupils, among them "Gus" Milner, then studying medicine. When her health was restored she returned to Berlin. Dr. Milner, for he had by that time secured his degree, followed her to Berlin and has been under her instruction ever since.

"Musical affairs are managed this way in Germany," said Dr. Milner. "Every city has a court theatre, under the patronage of a royal duke or some other dignitary. These theatres each have what we call stock companies attached to them, accomplished singers who give every winter a repertory of opera.

"At the head of the system is a gentleman, known as the Hofrath, or court adviser, before whom all persons desiring to sing in the court theatres must present themselves. This official, Carl Harder, is necessarily the dictator in musical affairs.

"When you sing before him and satisfy him that you have musical possibilities, he will provide that you receive an invitation to sing in some of the court theatres. These so-called 'guest performances' mean that the new singer is the guest. He must have prepared his roles and will be given a chance to sing one of them in the regular company attached to the theatre. If, in several guest performances, he makes good he may be engaged as a member of the company and thereafter his career lies ahead of him."

Dr. Milner sang in several guest performances during the past winter, one of his appearances at Prague having been noticed in the columns of this paper. He will sing at other guest performances next winter. That he has been busy during the summer is indicated by the fact that he is now prepared to sing in fourteen operas, and in some of them has committed two roles. He has also changed his voice from a bass to a baritone, on the advice of Mr. Harder.

The list of his operas is as follows: Wagner—Lohengrin and Tannhauser; Beethoven—Fidelio; Weber—Freischutz; Bizet—Carmen; Puccini— Butterfly; Mascagni—Cavalleria; Leoncavallo —Pagliacci; Flotow—Martha; Lortzing—Waffenschmeid; Gounod— Faust; Verdi—Trovatore, Traviata, Masked Ball.

Dr. Milner expects to remain several months in this country and will give a series of concerts at St. Louis, Minneapolis, Indianapolis and Chicago. He will also give a concert in this city before his return.

—The Waukesha Freeman, Waukesha, Wisconsin, November 23, 1911, page 1.

Chinese Music Played As the Musician Thinks Best

1920

Chinese Music Unwritten

Chinese music is not written. The words of some of the famous songs have been preserved, but the music has been handed down from father to son for generations that go far back before the day of the troubadours. When music is played it is played according to the memory of the musician and his ideas of interpretation. A musician varies the performance as his best judgment dictates, and the strings, reeds or brass may break in at almost any time.


Effect Not Appreciated

Instead of candles, Lucille's mother placed six large marshmallows on top of her birthday cake. When little Doris returned from the party her mother said, "Well, did you all have a jolly good time?" and she replied: "Yes, all but the cake. Oh, mother, that cake looked so bad, just like a cemetery. It had little tombstones on it!"


Hadn't Thought of That

A man, unable to choose a wife from three girls whom he admired, sent duplicate letters of proposal to all, intending to marry the one who assented first. The trouble that be did not foresee was that the two too-late ones would sue for breach of promise.

—Bedford Gazette, Bedford, Pennsylvania, January 9, 1920, page 10.